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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26588515">the clock runs out</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CeruleanTactician/pseuds/CeruleanTactician'>CeruleanTactician</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>the stars were made for falling [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ahsoka Tano Didn't Leave the Jedi Order, Ahsoka Tano-centric, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Divergence - s05e20 The Wrong Jedi, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark, Gen, Jedi Ahsoka Tano, Master &amp; Padawan Relationship(s), Not A Fix-It, Order 66, POV Ahsoka Tano, POV Female Character, Present Tense, Tragedy, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 13:08:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,757</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26588515</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CeruleanTactician/pseuds/CeruleanTactician</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ahsoka doesn’t leave the Jedi.</p><p>It isn’t enough to change the fate of the galaxy, but it is enough to change hers.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Anakin Skywalker &amp; Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi &amp; Ahsoka Tano</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>the stars were made for falling [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949089</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>128</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the clock runs out</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There’s a tension in the air that leaks out of the Council chamber when Ahsoka agrees. Master Plo’s shoulders relax and Master Obi-Wan dares to clasp her hand, gently, for a moment before giving her padawan beads and her lightsabers back to her. Even Master Windu nods and gives her a small smile.</p><p>She gives the beads to Anakin later, when they’re alone. He smiles tremulously, holding the beads carefully, and then hugs her before he can think better of it. </p><p>“I’m sorry,” he says softly, not letting her go for a long while. “I’m so sorry, Snips.”</p><p>It’s not the Knighting Ahsoka always thought she would get. </p><p>The Trials, of course, are a thing of the past since the war started. But—she had imagined Anakin, trying and failing to act casual, trying to surprise her as he led her to the Council chamber. Taking the Oath of Knighthood, giving him her padawan beads in front of the Council. Anakin and Master Obi-Wan telling her how proud they are of her. Letting the war go away for just one night and having a happy moment with her friends, with the only family she’s ever known. Maybe even a small celebration at Dex’s Diner.</p><p>She and Anakin talk for a while, about nothing in particular, carefully avoiding certain topics. Like her trial, her near-execution, like the war, which she hadn’t exactly kept up with in the past week. Anakin’s comm chirps, after a while. He checks it automatically, frowning.</p><p>“I have to—no, sorry.” Anakin pauses. “I should stay. I can stay, if you want.”</p><p>“It’s okay,” she says, after a half-second of hesitation. “You have your duties. I’ll be alright, Skyguy.”</p><p>“I’ll comm you as soon as I’m free. Get some sleep, Knight Tano.” Anakin says, trying for a small smile.</p><p>“I will if you will, Master Skywalker,” she says, giving him her best too-sharp grin that used to scare her crèchemates.</p><p>After Anakin leaves, Ahsoka looks at herself in the 'fresher mirror. She hasn’t slept since she was arrested, if one counts getting knocked unconscious as sleeping. Exhausted doesn't begin to describe what she feels. Still, she does make an effort to sleep. When that inevitably fails, she raids the cabinets for something edible and tries to meditate.</p><p>Anakin doesn’t comm her for another thirteen hours.</p>
<hr/><p>Ahsoka meditates more than she ever has. She is allocated new quarters in the Temple, living by herself for the first time in her life. A privilege, allegedly.</p><p>After she had been assigned to Anakin (and on the few occasions they made it back to the Temple for a full night) she had sometimes slept in a spare room in the quarters Anakin and Master Obi-Wan never had the time to move out of after Anakin’s Knighting. But most of the time, she had just grabbed a spare bunk in the padawan dorms with her friends. </p><p>The Temple is quieter than she remembers. Most of her former crèchemates, her friends that are her age, are either off fighting somewhere across the galaxy. Or worse. But everyone who is here—well, they don’t stare. Jedi do not stare. But they purposefully avoid her gaze, and conversations tend to begin with a stilted apology for what she went through rather than a congratulations on her Knighthood. Ahsoka finds herself eating alone in her new room.</p><p>Her heart freezes every time she thinks about visiting Barriss, though a part of her wants to. Well—in all honesty, she wants to shake her. Demand answers. Demand to know if they had ever been friends at all. The death penalty is being pursued for her too, but Barriss’ trial is going more slowly, carefully, in light of what happen to Ahsoka. She’s in the same prison Ahsoka had been held in. She could visit. There’s nothing stopping her except—</p><p>Ahsoka sees Master Luminara passing in the halls once. Her eyes widen and for a moment Ahsoka can feel her <em>heartbreak-guilt-pain</em> in the Force. And then, nothing, only a carefully honed look of neutrality. Ahsoka looks away first. </p><p>She doesn’t tell anyone except Anakin how close she was to leaving. How much she wanted, in that moment, to just turn around and leave, betrayal and hurt still crawling inside her. It feels crazy to think about it now—how could she have left? How could she have abandoned Skyguy, abandoned the men, abandoned her duties? What would she have done without the Order? What could she be, if not a Jedi?</p><p>Anakin is shocked when she tells him, left speechless for a few moments. Ahsoka is briefly overwhelmed by the sense of <em>fear-guilt-panic</em> in the Force.</p><p>“But you didn’t,” he says, finally managing some level of calm. “I—I understand, Ahsoka. About wanting to leave, more than you think I do. But we’re <em>Jedi</em>. We need to stay together.”</p><p>Anakin tries to help in other ways, of course. He is there when he can be, trying to cheer her up. He helps her decorate her new quarters, and brings her dinner when she forgets. Sometimes he brings some mechanical project into her room and tinkers with it, just to keep her company. She rolls her eyes and smiles to herself the first time she finds a stray bolt under her bed.</p><p>Padmé hugs her for a long moment the next time they see each other, and takes her out to lunch whenever she has a gap in her schedule, which is not often. The war is running her ragged too, just in a different way.</p><p>Master Plo apologizes to her again, in private this time. <em>You had other supporters on the Council</em>, he tells her<em>. We were outvoted and forbidden to speak.</em></p><p>Master Obi-Wan and the 212th are sent back to the front before he can speak to her again, though he leaves her an encouraging if hurried holomessage.</p><p>The 501st is on Coruscant on shore leave. She visits the men, and her heart almost doesn’t sink when they all call her General Tano. She can feel their relief in the Force though, at the fact that she’s free and alive, and the fact that she didn't betray them, that she didn’t murder their brothers. She sits with Rex for a while.</p><p>“I never believed you could do it,” he says.</p><p>For a while, Ahsoka almost finds her footing. But Anakin and the 501st are sent back to the front within the week, without her.</p>
<hr/><p>The Supreme Chancellor, of all people, calls her into his office a few days later. She knows the man is Anakin’s friend, and that he's been an ally of the Jedi his whole career, but she feels uncomfortable sitting alone in his office. Despite his closeness with her Master, he's never seemed to pay her much attention before. She takes the tea he offers—some Alderaani blend that tastes vaguely familiar—and tries to temper her resentment. Holding a grudge for something that was barely his fault was hardly the Jedi way. Barriss had <em>framed</em> her. Of course the Chancellor would go along with the prosecution. He was doing his duty to the Republic; it wasn't personal. She shouldn’t feel like—</p><p>“Knight Tano?” says the Chancellor. Ahsoka looks up, startled. Had she really just spaced off like a inattentive youngling, in front of the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic? Her face warms.</p><p>“My apologies. Chancellor?” Ahsoka says quickly, years of diplomacy classes kicking in.</p><p>“Please, don’t apologize on my account. I can’t imagine how much stress you’ve been under during these past few weeks,” the Chancellor says, sympathetically. “I've asked you here because I wanted to apologize to you about my role in your troubles. It is painful for me to think that I could have been involved in the wrongful execution of an innocent young Jedi.”</p><p>The old man did sound genuinely pained as he spoke. And she could feel a real sense of regret from him in the Force. All of which just made her feel guilty.</p><p>“It’s not your fault, Chancellor,” says Ahsoka. “We were all fooled by Bar—by Padawan Offee.” </p><p>“We were,” the Chancellor agrees gravely. “It is difficult to think that even among the foremost defenders of the Republic there are Separatist traitors. Your former Master has told me many times how difficult these kinds of situations make the work of the Jedi.”</p><p>The Chancellor looks out the window for a moment, to the Coruscant skyline, then gazes at her. “I hope you know that if there is anything that I can do to assist you in the future, you should not hesitate to contact my office, or me personally.”</p><p>Ahsoka resists the urge to squirm in her seat. She knows that the old man means well. “Thank you, Chancellor. I appreciate your kind offer.”</p><p>“I know that I cannot easily make up for the difficulties you have faced, but if you ever require my assistance, all you need do is ask,” he says. “Well. Regardless, I am glad to see you’ve reconciled with the Jedi Order, despite all that happened. I do hope you will be able to recover from this experience in peace, Knight Tano."</p><p>The Chancellor smiles at her benevolently.</p><p>"More tea?”</p>
<hr/><p>Ahsoka is sent back to the front three days later. </p><p>The Council is sorry, of course. She should have more time, to recover, to reconnect to the Force and the Order after such a trying experience. But she is a General now, in her own right, and Jedi are dying every day. The Order’s youngest Knight is also an experienced soldier, a leader of men. There is another crisis every day, and she is desperately needed.</p><p>Ahsoka could refuse. There are other Jedi who have. She could <em>make</em> them give her more time, the time that she needs.</p><p>Instead, she asks Master Yoda where they’re sending her.</p>
<hr/><p>During the Outer Rim Sieges, Ahsoka loses more friends than during the rest of the war combined. </p><p>Jedi are dying by the dozens, sometimes hundreds each month. She’s on Saleucami serving under Master Stass Allie when Fives dies, and details about the incident are frustratingly scarce beyond rumors from the men. She sees Anakin and Master Obi-Wan irregularly, and they rarely have time to answer their comms. Padmé manages to comm her occasionally, between votes and committee meetings.</p><p>Sometimes, Ahsoka wonders if the Republic is losing.</p><p>She finds herself thinking of Barriss more often than she expected. And beneath the anger and grief Ahsoka feels, she also wonders. The way she went about it was abominable, of course- Barriss had murdered dozens of innocent people. But was this war and the Jedi's role in it really an inevitability? Had the Republic truly tried to negotiate with the Separatists, hear them out?</p><p>It’s not true, of course. Dooku is a Sith Lord. He would never have negotiated in good faith. There was never anything the Republic could have done to appease him. Grievous and Dooku had attacked countless neutral planets, killed countless civilians. The consequences of inaction were too dire. The Jedi had to respond. Ahsoka <em>knows</em> this, and over the course of the war she has seen it too.</p><p>But she doubts, sometimes.</p><p>Her men aren’t 501st—the 501st is with Anakin, though she tries her best to keep in touch, and appreciates the few occasions where they can fight alongside each other again. These men are 106th. Their commanding officer, a Knight that Ahsoka hadn’t known, had been cut down by Grievous three weeks back. </p><p>They are skeptical of her at first, grief and lack of knowledge of their new, teenage General, warring with their loyalty to the GAR and the Jedi. Her commander, a clone called Burst, warms to her fairly quickly after she asks for his help learning all the names of the men under her command. <em>If she’s going to ask them to die, it is the least she can do</em>, is the unsaid understanding between the two of them.</p><p>They watch her meditate skeptically. They teach her new card games. She pretends that she doesn’t know that some of the old timers call her the “shiny General” and doesn’t smile when she hears Burst chewing them out. When she catches some shinies painting orange and white patterns on their buckets, she can’t stop a grateful smile. She tries not to weep when she sees those same shinies cut down in the field. War shouldn't be the most normal she's felt since she was arrested. But it is.</p><p>Life—and the war—goes on. She turns 17. It's the third birthday she's spent in the field of battle. The last time, she had been with the 501st. With Anakin. Ahsoka doesn't even notice what day it is until that evening, when Padmé comms to tell her congratulations.</p>
<hr/><p>When she hears about Coruscant, about Chancellor Palpatine's capture, when she hears that Master Obi-Wan and Anakin have been sent, she nearly screams at Master Allie in the middle of local command trying to get her unit sent to Coruscant.</p><p>“General Tano,” she says. “We must be strong, in the face of this. You and your men are still needed here. Do you not trust Master Skywalker and Master Kenobi?”</p><p>“Of course I do,” she snaps.</p><p>“Then trust that they can do this without your assistance.” Master Allie says.</p><p>The feeling of dread only gets worse as the day goes on. The men are worried about her. Through her bond with her former Master, she briefly feels a sense of <em>triumph-relief-pride</em>—that’s when she knows that they’ve rescued the Chancellor, five full minutes before Burst tells her the news. For a day, she lets herself relax and watches the men cheer when Dooku is listed as a confirmed casualty.</p><p>She comms a distracted-seeming Anakin that night. She sits crosslegged on her bed, Anakin's small holoprojection in front of her.</p><p>"Hey, Snips. Sorry, I should have commed earlier, long day. How are you doing?" Anakin says with a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes.</p><p>"Really, Master?" says Ahsoka.</p><p>"Really, what?" says Anakin with a frown.</p><p>"You save the Chancellor, stop the attack on Coruscant, kill Count Dooku, and all you have to say to me is <em>Hey, Snips, sorry, long day</em>." Ahsoka says with a raised brow, no longer able to hide her grin.</p><p>Anakin cracks a grin as well. "Oh, not you too. It's like you and Obi-Wan <em>want</em> me to get a big head."</p><p>"No," teases Ahsoka. "I just want a little insider details. After all, I am talking to the Hero with No Fear himself."</p><p>Anakin actually groans when she says the name, which makes her laugh. Back when they were together, they would compete to find the most ridiculous articles on the Holonet about the exploits of the Negotiator and the Hero with No Fear. They laugh and talk for a little while longer.</p><p>She gets only a few insider details about the Battle of Coruscant—Anakin avoids talking about his battle with Count Dooku for some reason. Anakin starts to make excuses—he has to "file a mission report" and "check on the men—thank the Force we've finally been given a couple of weeks of shore leave". Ahsoka would almost believe that, but a distinctive vase that she knows is located in Padmé's apartment gets caught on the edges of the holoprojection a few times. After he hangs up, Ahsoka rolls her eyes, and gets the best sleep she's had in months.</p><p>But the next day, the dread, the unease that’s permeating the Force only gets worse. The Force hasn’t felt good since the war started, but this is the worse it’s been that Ahsoka can ever remember. And—though she only gets snippets of contextless emotions through her bond—Anakin is not doing well. She feels intermittent flashes of anger, fear, panic, vanishing as fast as they appear. Her former Master feels strongly, she knows. But if his shields are slipping this much...</p><p>Anakin doesn’t answer his comm. But Master Obi-Wan does.</p><p>“Ahsoka,” he says. He looks tired, but that’s been true for a while now. “It’s good to see you.”</p><p>“You as well.” Ahsoka says. “Master, I commed to tell you that I—I sense a great unease in Anakin.”</p><p>“Ah,” says Master Obi-Wan, stroking his beard thoughtfully. “Yes. He is under a great deal of pressure, now. I assume you haven't heard—he’s been appointed to the Council, at the request of the Supreme Chancellor.”</p><p>Ahsoka blinks. Anakin, on the <em>Council</em>? At the behest of the Chancellor?</p><p>“Chancellor Palpatine can do that?” asks Ahsoka.</p><p>“He has gained a great deal of power under recent legislation. For the remainder of the emergency period, the office of the Supreme Chancellor has direct supervision of the Order, rather than the Senate." </p><p>Master Obi-Wan pauses. “But it’s not just that. Chancellor Palpatine has managed to stay in office long after the remainder of his term, Ahsoka. The Council has asked Anakin to report to them about the Chancellor’s dealings.”</p><p>Ahsoka feels her stomach drop.</p><p>“They asked him to spy on the Chancellor? But the Chancellor is one of his closest friends. His mentor. Wouldn’t it be better to ask someone—<em>anyone</em>- else?” she says.</p><p>“Who else is there to ask? The Chancellor is not close to many Jedi.” Master Obi-Wan shakes his head. “But… I agree that the Council is not infallible. This is a difficult task for Anakin. Please—if you can, Ahsoka, try to talk to him.”</p><p>“I will, Master.”</p><p>“I’m sorry, but I can’t talk for much longer. I’m being sent to Utapau. There’s a lead on Grievous. I must leave within the hour. If I’m successful, the war could be over very soon.”</p><p>Ahsoka swallows the lump in her throat. Somehow, she doesn't think it'll be that simple. “Force be with you, Master.”</p><p>“And with you as well, pada—Ahsoka.” Master Obi-Wan says. He smiles ruefully at his slip and cuts the connection.</p><p>Afterwards, of course, Anakin still isn’t answering his comm.</p><p>Ahsoka is on edge for the rest of the day before she feels so much <em>panic-fear-despair </em>that she literally drops to her knees in the middle of the field. Instantly, clones are by her side, calling for a medic and holding her steady. She waves them off, letting the wave of vertigo pass and forcing herself to find calm, as she has been taught her entire life. She can almost hear Anakin saying something—<em>what is he saying?</em></p><p>“I have to leave,” she says, jumping to her feet.</p><p>“General?” asks Burst.</p><p>“Something has happened. I’m needed on Coruscant now.”</p><p>“But you heard General Allie. You’re needed here.” says Burst, confused. She is already headed to a transport, where she knows that she can find a ship she'll be able to commandeer to Coruscant. If she’s lucky with hyperlanes, she can be there in a few hours. Burst jogs at her side, just barely keeping up.</p><p>“Do you trust me?” Ahsoka asks, stopping suddenly. Even with his bucket on, Ahsoka can sense Burst’s frown.</p><p>After a moment, he sighs. “Of course I do. You’re crazy, but you’re the good kind of crazy—no disrespect meant, General.”</p><p>Ahsoka manages a smile. “Then trust that I need to do this. Cover for me with General Allie?”</p><p>“I will if you promise me one thing,” says Burst, voice low and serious. “Promise me that you won’t do anything foolish and that you’ll come back to us in one piece.”</p><p>“I always do, Commander,” says Ahsoka with a casual salute. Under his bucket, she can hear him chuckle softly.</p><p>If she's learned anything from Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka has learned how to fly a ship dangerously fast. She’s in hyperspace before anyone notices she’s gone. </p>
<hr/><p>Ahsoka tries to get a hold of herself and meditate on the journey. <em>Tries</em> being the operative word. She’s never felt anything like this before. The Force is <em>screaming</em>. It sounds like it's in pain. She tries the ship's comms, though she knows they won’t work in hyperspace, and desperately tries to connect with her former Master. But the bond has been silent ever since that awful moment of <em>panic-fear-despair</em>.</p><p><em>Let him be alive</em>, she thinks. <em>Master, please be alive</em>.</p><p>When the ship jumps out of hyperspace near Coruscant, her comms light up with an emergency message from the Temple. It's an order for all Jedi, to return immediately to the Temple. She stares, panic and confusion and the desperate need to <em>do something</em> warring against each other. </p><p>Well. There was one way to figure this out. She remembers what Master Obi-Wan always said about traps.</p><p>She ignores the hails from Coruscant Port Control and goes off radar, making a landing that she thinks would’ve made Anakin proud in outskirts of the Works. Ahsoka runs to the Temple, hood up, taking short-cuts wherever she can. The streets are mostly bare except for the odd squad of clone troopers. She’s about to ask one what’s going on, but the Force cries out as she moves to do so.</p><p><em>Stealth it is, then</em>, she thinks.</p><p>When she arrives, Ahsoka finds that she has stepped into a nightmare. The Temple is on fire. She can see it from a distance and makes herself to let go of her panic. It won’t help her or anyone else. At first, she thinks the crowds of clones—the 501st, she notes in relief—are there to try and extinguish the flames. Then, from her place in the shadows, she sees a padawan with a green lightsaber stab a clone in the back. She gasps in sheer horror, grabbing her sabers and almost rushing out to defend the clones. Then the rest of the group calmly turns and guns the boy down.</p><p>“Area not clear,” says one trooper into his wrist comm. “We just got another.”</p><p>Ahsoka’s blood turns to ice in her veins. <em>No, no, no, no—</em>

</p><p>After she recovers, she moves into the temple silently, losing precious time avoiding clone troopers’ (her men, once, her friends) patrols. As soon as she steps into the temple, she feels him. <em>Anakin</em>. He’s still alive. And there it was again, that <em>panic-fear-despair.</em> But… there was something else there as well. Something she couldn't quite reach.</p><p>As Ahsoka moves deeper into the Temple, she starts to find bodies. The very young, the old, the sick and infirm. If one was a Jedi who couldn’t fight in the field, the Temple was where they stayed. And right now, everyone who could be in the field, was. She had seen bodies before, of course, the aftermath of battles, of Separatist massacres of people who tried to fight back. But this was different. This was <em>her home</em>.</p><p>Ahsoka puts aside her growing despair. She suppresses the nausea she feels when she finds a group of lifeless padawans that she <em>knew</em>, when she catches a glimpse of Rex and Jesse’s distinct armor at the end of a corridor. She doesn't have time for that. She has to find any survivors and help them escape. She has to find Anakin. </p><p>She starts running when she hears the distant sound of a lightsaber, abandoning any notions of stealth. If there was even a single Jedi still alive, that she could <em>help</em>—</p><p>She rounds the corner and she sees Anakin.</p><p>His lightsaber is ignited, blue lighting up his face in the darkened Temple. He is alone. The temperature seems to drop as she gets closer to him. There is a hideous expression on his face. It was one she had seen before, in the heat of battle, when their men were dying and there was nothing any of them could do but <em>fight</em>. </p><p>He looks up at her, and wide blue eyes meet Anakin’s sickly yellow. And Coruscant seems to tilt on its axis, because <em>Anakin’s eyes are yellow</em>. Distantly, Ahsoka realizes that out of the bodies she had seen, not all had been killed by the clone's blaster fire.</p><p>“Ahsoka,” says Anakin, a note of surprise in his voice. “I thought you were away.”</p><p>“Master?” says Ahsoka, barely recognizing her own voice. “What—what are you doing?”</p><p>“What must be done,” says Anakin. “Ahsoka. The Jedi were plotting to take over the Republic by assassinating the Chancellor. They’re traitors.”</p><p>Ahsoka stares at him, frozen in place. “...what?”</p><p>“I understand. You were kept in the dark too.” says Anakin, an eerie calm in his voice, and suddenly he’s <em>smiling</em> and he's <em>moving towards her</em>. Ahsoka takes an instinctive step back in alarm. In response, Anakin switches off his lightsaber, clipping it to his belt in one fluid motion, putting his hands up.</p><p>“It’s alright, Ahsoka. I said I understand. We were all fooled. The Jedi are corrupt. You saw yourself how quick they were to abandon you. They betrayed you, and they’ve betrayed the Republic. Don't worry—I can get you a pardon from the Chancellor, easily,” he says. "All you have to do is help me finish this."</p><p>Something inside Ahsoka breaks with his words. She takes a step forward, her voice shaking with emotion.</p><p>“Finish this?” she yells. “Finish <em>murdering</em> our friends? Our family? You are not in your right mind, Anakin!”

</p><p>She shakes her head in disbelief, her heart racing. “You need help. I don’t know what’s happened, but I know this isn’t you.”</p><p>Anakin frowned, but his voice was deliberately clear, as if speaking to a child. “Ahsoka, if you won’t help, then you must step aside and let me do it myself.”</p><p>“Let you keep murdering innocent people?” says Ahsoka, an edge of hysteria in her voice, moving to block the way further into the Temple. “This is madness!”</p><p>"This is necessary. I'm ending the war. I am bringing peace to the galaxy!" he says.</p><p>"No, Anakin." Ahsoka says. "I will not let you do this."</p><p>“Step aside, padawan,” says Anakin, patience clearly wearing thin.</p><p>“I am <em>not your padawan</em>.” Ahsoka says. Disbelief hardens into resolve. She ignites her sabers.</p><p>Anakin ignites his blade in turn.</p><p>“If that’s what you wish,” he says, almost casually.</p><p>Blue clashes against green. They’d sparred with each other many times before—in the training halls of the Temple, in the gym on the <em>Resolute</em>, whenever they had a spare moment on a campaign. But they had never fought like this. Ahsoka knows how he fights, just as Anakin knows her. It is a terrible moment, the instant when Ahsoka realizes that he’s actually going to do it. He’s actually trying to <em>kill her</em>. </p><p>Ahsoka Tano is one of the most talented Jedi of her generation. Her level of skill in Jar'Kai can and has put Jedi Masters to shame. But Anakin Skywalker is the living child of the Force itself. He is prophecy in physical form. He is not just better, he is the best there is, and his arrogance and impulsiveness are all that keep him from his full potential. </p><p>She fights hard. She fights brutally, realizing and accepting that she may have to kill Anakin just to stop the carnage, just to stay alive. Ahsoka uses every trick that she knows.</p><p>But all the tricks she knows, he taught her.</p><p>Ahsoka slips up. She overextends herself and her guard falls, for just a moment—a mistake he’d seen her make before, had corrected her on before—and Anakin doesn’t hesitate to take the opportunity. He slashes her side, and she falls. </p><p>In her last moments, the Force grants Ahsoka clarity. She sees her former Master as he truly is—desperate, fearful, half out of his mind. She understands, as much as she is able to.</p><p>There is an expression almost like regret on Anakin’s face as he observes her last moments. All of his desperate rationalizing:<em> I had no choice. Sidious said every one. </em>And what is Ahsoka, in comparison to the love of his life, Padmé? Ahsoka, who admitted to him herself that she almost <em>left him</em>. Ahsoka, who chose to raise her blades against him when he gave her another way. Ahsoka may be like his child, but, ultimately, she isn’t. His child is with Padmé and he must—he <em>has to</em>—protect them.</p><p>All Jedi must die, and Ahsoka Tano is nothing if not a Jedi.</p>
<hr/><p>When her grandmasters enter the Temple, Obi-Wan and Yoda find not just the bodies of the younglings, the old and the sick, and their defenders. Not just the bodies of the clones, pawns to the end. They also find the body of Anakin Skywalker’s padawan.</p>
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